Hello everybody,
today I'm going to talk about a deck that I really like, but that is very difficult to play: Death & Taxes.
Death & Taxes is a Midrange deck that relies on "taxing" your opponent meanwhile you're beating him to death!
I prefer the black variant because you can play some powerful creatures in mainboard and add some nice cards in the sideboard!
Death & Taxes Creatures
According to me, these creatures embody the meaning of Death & Taxes: they tax your opponent in different ways (by increasing casting cost or riping a card from their hand) and they beat your opponent.
Let's start from Thalia. We play only 8 non-creature spells, so her effect doesn't affect us too much, but it can be very difficult for your opponent to manage the increasing casting cost. Moreover, first strike helps her in getting early damage and she can block all the x/2 creatures. The downside is that, with only 1 point in thoughtness, a lot of different spells and creatures can easily kill her. Four Thalia are mandatory, because she's absolutely house against Burn, Tron, GDS, UW Control and Storm.
Then we have Tidehollow Sculler. Pay attention to its wording, because it has 2 different trigger abilities: enter the battlefield and leave the battlefield. For example, if the ETB ability is on the stack and your opponent kills your creature, then the LTB ability goes on the stack and resolves before the ETB ability, so you're going to rip a card from your opponent hand FOREVER! So, if you have a way to blink it (and you actually have different ways) just blink it to get more value! It's great against all combo decks like Amulet Titan, Whirza and Storm that lack removals; moreover, it's strong against Burn and Eldratron, too.
Lastly, we have Thought-Knot Seer. 4/4 for 4 mana is nothing special, but it's worth it thanks to the fact that with ETB you exile one card from your opponent hand and with LTB your opponent draws a card. Moreover, with Eldrazi Temple you can cast it on turn 3, and it's not so simple to manage a 4/4 on turn 3 that rips a card from hand! For this spaghetti monster I can only say that, if in your deck you've a lot of colorless mana sources, you've to play it!
4/4/4 is the perfect number!
Stoneforge package
In legacy, Death & Taxes plays the stoneforge package. Why shouldn't I play it?
There's not so much to say, I absolutely love Stoneforge and, if a deck allows me to play her, I do.
SFM here it's a value engine, because she lets you get the right equipment at the right time and in this shell we have a lot of manners to protect her!
For the second equipment, I prefer Sword of Light and Shadow, because you usually fetch the sword after Batterskull, so in the mid/late game when your graveyard is already filled with creatures and thus taking the right craeture from the graveyard could be gamechanging! Moreover, with that sword you protect all the creatures from the most common removal (Path to Exile, Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt with +2/+2, etc.)
3/1/1 are my numbers here!
Blink Creatures
We are plenty of ETB effects, and these creatrures are a perfect support for them!
Flickerwisp could seem harmless, but in combination with Aether Vial, you will change your mind about it! Vialing it in response of a removal could break the simmetry of the match. Moreover, you can vial it in your opponent upkeep to blink a planeswalker thus preventing his activation, then you can attack it in your main phase. Moreover it sinergizes very well with Wasteland Strangler!
The second creature of this type is Eldrazi Displacer. Displacer can blink only creatures, but it taps them, letting you to clear the path to your opponent life points or letting you to stabilize against aggro decks.
The numbers here are simple: 4/4
Other Creatures
These are the last creatures that I play.
Giver of Runes is a strange version of Mother of Runes (this is why Giver is called Stepmom). She can't give protection to herself, but she can give protection from colorless, and if you have 2 of her on the battlefield you could stale the board because they give protection to each other.
Lastly, we have Wasteland Strangler that sinergizes very well with all the exile effects in our deck (there are 16 exile effetcs!), acting as a removal against a lot of decks. Remember, you can put in the graveyard:
The card exiled by Tidehollow Sculler
The card exiled by Flickerwisp
Suspended card
My numbers for these are 3/2
Non-Creature Spells
Well, Aether Vial can give you an incredible tempo advantage "doubling" your mana in early turn and giving to your creature a pseudo flash ability. This card sinergizes very well with all the creature of the deck, giving you a lot of tricks, just to name a few:
With Tidehollow Sculler ability on the stack, you have to retain priority and vial in a Flickerwisp, this lets you to exile a card FOREVER and exile another card under Tidehollow in the end of the turn
Vialing in a Tidehollow or a TKS in the draw step, after that your opponent draw a card, give you more information and can remove the card that they have just drawn
Vialing a Flickerwisp or an Eldrazi Displacer (with enough mana) in response of a removal spell acts as a counter, fizzling that spell
You have a lot of nice interactions with Vial, and I wouldn't play this deck without 4 of them.
The last spell of the deck is Path to Exile, for a single W mana can exile every creatures without any restriction. Moreover it sinergizes with Wasteland Strangler, 4 of Pte it's mandatory.
Manabase
The mana base is really difficult, because we are a tri-color deck (Black, White and Colorless) without fetchland, so this is the best compromise:
12 colorless mana sources;
13 white mana sources;
12 black mana sources.
The best land in this deck is Caves of Koilos, giving you all the three colors that you need, then we have a full set of Concelead Courtyard that gives you BW without (almost) any downside. Then we have Eldrazi Temple that cheats with mana, after this, we have 4 Ghost Quarter, because Tron is a thing and you can use GQ on your own land to get the color that you need, 3 Shambling Vent because manlands are fine, and lowering your clock with them could lead you to the win, lastly we have some basic lands.
The numbers are 4/4/4/4/3/2/1
Sideboard
Lastly we have the sideboard.
According to MTGGoldfish, you've to play:
Land Hate
Artifact Hate
Graveyard Hate
Engine Value
Stop Tutor
Some lifegain
So we play 2 Damping Sphere against Tron, Amulet and it is useful against storm and Nausea, too
Then we have 2 Stony Silence as artifact hate, 3 Rest in Peace as graveyard hate. I want to spend more words on Rest in Peace, you should side it in against Jund, because you shutdown a lot of cards in that deck (Tarmogoyf, Wrenn&Six, Ooze) and transform your Wasteland Strangler in a hard removal! Side it against Death Shadow, too!
As for Value Engine, I like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, because it can win the game alone in the right matchup, 2 Reality Smasher because your opponent has to spend two cards for killing it and Kitchen Finks, that acts as lifegain plus recursive threat. As for stop tutor, I prefer Aven Mindcensor over Leonin Arbiter, because it has Flash, flying and it is good in the late game, too. Moreover, with only 2 slots, I prefer invest them in Mindcensor. As final sideboard card we have dismember against creature strategy.
Final Thought
Here you can find my decklist. I really appreciate this deck, because it's a midrange deck that relies on creatures. It's very hard to play it, but winning with this deck it's really satisfying!
And you, what do you think about this deck? Do you like this?
Regards
Vito